The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/grief/physical.htm

Updated
01-19-2015

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This is one of a series of articles supporting Lesson 3 in the
Break the Cycle! self-improvement course. This lesson aims to educate readers
to healthy grieving basics so they can spot and complete unfinished
mourning of major
losses.

Many unaware adults and most (all?) kids associate "loss" and "brief"
with death. The reality is that we all form strong bonds to
many physical and invisible things across our lives. When those
bonds break, we need to
grieve.

Here
a loss
is a broken psychological bondwith (attachment
to) something of value. That is, a loss is a mental, psychological, and perhaps spiritual
reaction to some precious thing, relationship, activity, dream, or situation that will never be experienced in the same way again.

Print one or more
copies of this inventory, and have extra paper and a pen on hand

Get in a quiet, undistracted place, and
allot plenty of
time to meditate as you fill this worksheet out,

Remind yourself that
healthy grief helps you accept
many kinds of loss, not just death;
and...

Expect to learn
something useful from doing this.

Options

Make notes or symbols on this worksheet, and add items to fit your unique situation as you go. Note comments or feelings,
and hilight with colored markers. Make this inventory work for
you!

When
you're done, go back and rank-order the most impactful losses
(e.g. "1" = most impactful, "2" = next, etc.). Alternatively,
asterisk or circle the most significant losses without ranking.

Before using
the inventory below, pause and reflect on your life. Identify the
most important physical things you've lost across the years,
starting with childhood.

Use a copy of
this inventory to guess what precious physical things another person
(like a child, mate, or parent) has lost.

One value of these
two inventories is in becoming aware of
how many things you or another person has lost. Another is becoming
more aware of how you or they have reacted to those losses. So -get quiet, take
your time, and note your significant physical losses (broken bonds).

Directions

Pick a starting point - e.g. early childhood or
a key change in your life.

Choose a non-distracted time and place, and allot at least 30" to do
this exercise. Print this worksheet, or make your own.

In the
Loss column, circle, hilight, and name the cherished physical things you've
lost.

In the "Lost How" column, use a symbol for
what caused your physical loss - e.g.

"G" for
growing up

"L" for leaving home

"M" for marriage

"Co" for cohabiting

"R" for a
relocation

"B"
for child-conception
and birth

"D" for
separation or
divorce

"H" for
illness

"X" for
death

"N"
for natural disaster

"O" for other reasons.

Get clear on your criteria for judging if grief is "done."
One way to judge this is whether the person demonstrates (vs. says) they have genuinely
accepted a loss on mental,
emotional, and spiritual
levels. Incomplete
acceptance causes behavioral clues like
these.

Use your criteria to decide if you
have (or someone else has) grieved each loss "well enough,"
and put "Y(es)," "No," or "?"
in the Grieved Enough? column for each
tangible loss.

If useful, fill out copies of this inventory for each major life
event that caused significant physical loss/es for you or another person

Note that
significant life changes don't necessarily cause losses (broken
bonds) - and all losses result from major life changes.

Pause, breathe, and reflect: why did you read or fill out this
inventory - what did you
need? If
you got what you needed, what do you need to do now? If you didn't, what
do you need? Who's answering these questions - your wise resident
true Self, or
''someone else''?